Everyone, the date and time are set (although a change in the time due to logistics of the meeting room). I call all fans of professional soccer in Austin to join Chantico's Army and many others in discussing our options in the post-Austin Aztex era. When :: Saturday, December 4th, 2010 from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. Where :: Mister Tramp's Pub (8565 Research Blvd., Austin, 78758) Who :: All Professional Soccer Fans in Austin If you have questions, feel free to email info@chanticosarmy.com or DM me.
Speaking on behalf of Futbol En Vivo, I will announce this on the show tomorrow and point people to attend this meeting. I'll also reach out to Jorge Iturralde from Club Deportes/AM1260 to see if he would be interested in attending. He might be able to offer some good perspective from the Hispanic community.
I'll put a notice in the Chronicle as well. Unfortunately, I can only be there for the first half myself; I've got a game at 3:40 down at Onion Creek.
Thanks for the announcement, Barbaro! We'll make sure and get your feedback early on before you have to run.
Everton and Liverpool? Everton moved out of a stadium and the stadium owner created a new team (Liverpool) to go in it.
Hope this meeting has a fluent spannish speaking host also. Really bad day/time for me but I will be there.
Out of all the various options/proposals/directions we may consider at the meeting, are there any outstanding questions that we can get information for ahead of the meeting? If there are some quasi-obvious questions that we can get concrete answers for ahead of the meeting, we may be able to make more progress while we're all together. We should also strongly consider simply inviting someone from Millennium FC to talk about their team and plans.
Good read on the newest peoples club CHESTER'S NEW CLUB PULLS IN THE CROWDS By Mark Howell, Chester FC City Fans United, from When Saturday Comes The supporters of the reborn Chester FC have been requested to "arrive early to avoid turnstile congestion" for today's Evo-Stik League Division One North game with second-placed Skelmersdale United, as a 3000-plus attendance is expected. The club is thriving again after a torrid start to 2010. On Friday February 26, Chester City were expelled from the Conference, following months of abandoned games, unfulfilled fixtures, pitch invasions and boycotts. This action was followed by the liquidation of the club in the High Court in London the following Wednesday. The last game the club played was at home to Ebbsfleet United on February 6 in front of a hardy 460 supporters. Anchored to the bottom of the Conference following a 25-point pre-season deduction, Chester were 33 points from safety at the time of their putting to sleep. Spurred on by a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" mentality, the supporters and community of Chester rallied behind their supporters' trust, City Fans United. Membership grew exponentially early in the new year, as supporters become more and more disenfranchised with the club's owners. When the inevitable happened last February, the support was fantastic. A crisis meeting at the historic Chester Guildhall - which had been labelled a "bingo hall" by our previous chairman in a mad rant on Sky Sports News - attracted a huge crowd, with more people than had attended the Ebbsfleet game just weeks previously. A business plan for a community driven, co-operative football club was presented to our local authority; in May the council offered the supporters the lease on the stadium. MBNA, the largest local employer, became the club's main sponsor and appointed a chief executive whose first task was to find a new management team. The young local pairing of Neil Young and Gary Jones, who had taken Colwyn Bay to promotion from our Division the previous year, were a perfect fit. Armed with a great knowledge of the Division, they set to work. Over 1500 supporters made their way up the coast to Colwyn Bay for a friendly in July, followed by home gates of way over 1500 for Wigan and FC United, and almost 2000 witnessed a 2-1 win over traditional local rivals Tranmere Rovers. On August 24, 2010, in front of a sell-out all-ticket 1300 Chester following, Rob Hopley scored Chester FC's first League goal, away at Warrington Town. Since drawing 1-1 that night, Chester have built up a six-point lead at the top of the League, but chasing teams Skelmersdale and Curzon have games in hand. Average home attendances stand at over 2600, an incredible feat for a club playing at the eighth level of the English pyramid. A little bit of spice has been added to the Skelmersdale game as their chairman, Frank Hughes, was quoted in the press at the start of the season as saying Chester supporters are "being rewarded for failure", a comment that was at best insensitive, even ignorant - the failure was absolutely nothing to do with the supporters of the club. There are currently 2679 owners of this 125-year-old institution, with its new motto, "Our City. Our Community. Our Club". They are finally masters of their own destiny and are enjoying every last second of it. God knows they deserve it.
Another, sorry for the bore-a-thon but some may be interested ? CLINGING ON AND ON THE WAY UP: A TALE OF TWO FAN CLUBS Both run by supporters but with wildly differing results on and off the field, Ebbsfleet and AFC Wimbledon meet in the FA Cup tonight. Glenn Moore looks at two new-model outfits, from The Independent To own your own club is the dream of many a football fan, but unless you are a petro-dollar billionaire, or business tycoon, the options appear to be limited. It is not, however, impossible and tonight two very different fan-ownership models take centre stage in the FA Cup. The ESPN cameras are at Stonebridge Road, the unprepossessing north Kent home of Ebbsfleet United, for the visit of AFC Wimbledon. At stake is a place in the Second Round, and an unglamorous, if winnable, home tie against Stevenage, but there is a bigger picture. AFC are the club created by Wimbledon fans after the Football Association allowed the original club to be transplanted to Milton Keynes eight years ago. Most supporters were hugely relieved when Stevenage defeated MK Dons on penalties in a First-Round Replay on Tuesday as they felt a meeting between the two "Dons" would "legitimise" the League One club. Ebbsfleet United, who changed their name from Gravesend & Northfleet in honour of the Eurostar terminal three years ago, are the club bought by ground-breaking internet venture MyFootballClub in January 2008. The 30,000-plus subscribers were told they would be selecting the team in a real-life version of the computer game Football Manager. AFC Wimbledon are football's fairy tale. They began in the Combined Counties League with a team picked from public trials on Wimbledon Common. Four promotions in seven seasons later they lead the Blue Square (Conference) Premier, own a 6000-capacity stadium in Kingston, south-west London, and have designs on building a 20,000-arena back in their old borough of Merton. The club is wholly owned by a supporters' trust and attendances average around 3500, higher than some of the gates the original club achieved when winning promotion to the old First Division under Dave Bassett in 1986. The MyFootballClub experience has been more chastening. The non-profit-making Industrial & Provident society bought 75 per cent of Ebbsfleet amid a blaze of publicity, much of it based on the prospect of picking the team via web broadcasts of matches and training sessions. An initial 27,500 fans paid GBP35 to join, rising to 30,000-plus the following May as Ebbsfleet lifted the FA Trophy at Wembley. However, while members were able to vote on ticket prices and kit design, team selection remained the province of the manager, Liam Daish. Members were asked to vote on whether to sell striker John Akinde to Bristol City for GBP150,000 in August 2008 but recruitment, and most transfers out, remained in Daish's hands. Unsurprisingly, many members did not renew. Membership tumbled to below 10,000 after a year and is now around 3500. With subscriptions a key source of income the squad suffered and in May Ebbsfleet were relegated from the Blue Square Premier. They now sit just outside the play-off places in the Blue Square South, with average gates below 1000. Plans for a new ground are on indefinite hold; instead they remain at the council-owned Stonebridge Road, much of which looks as if it has not changed since Wimbledon first visited in the Southern League 45 years ago. Tonight's tie provides a welcome boost, both in terms of profile and finance. How serious the club's problems had become are evident when the current chairman, Phil Sonsara, says: "At the start of the season the most important thing was that Ebbsfleet United still had a club at the end of the season." Sonsara is The Fleet's fourth chairman since MyFC's takeover. Unusually in football, the manager has survived while his chairmen have changed. A Tottenham season-ticket holder, Sonsara was in the first wave of members. He had no previous links with the club but did have financial expertise, being an accountant, and time - he had quit his job and is separated without children. A year ago he offered his services, and now finds himself trying to emulate Spurs chairman Daniel Levy's ability to produce a balanced budget. "Spurs make money, which is unusual in football, but it shows it can be done. My aim is to make the club self-financing so any income from MyFC can be ploughed into better facilities to support the club's long term." There are those, including ex-secretary and former director Roly Edwards, who feel the MyFC concept is, as he told the BBC, "damaging the club", but Sonsara puts up a strong defence. "The fans are not as directly involved [as some expected] but I have met supporters from all over the world who come to matches to be a part of it. At the first FA Cup tie [12 days ago] with AFC Wimbledon there were two from the New York area, I've met fans from Germany, Holland, Norway and so on. Many people thought membership would settle down to be 2000-3000. At GBP50 a head that is still GBP100,000-GBP150,000, which is significant at this level. "As for picking the team, I was involved at the very beginning and I never thought I should pick the team. We appoint a manager, we should let him get on with the job. I have ideas on tactics and players but even in my position I don't watch enough training sessions or matches to pick the team." The membership has had the chance to vote for the right to pick the team, and always rejected it. Last month, however, a vote was passed to have the final say on transfer acquisitions. MyFC thought this would increase membership but Daish expressed concern and Ebbsfleet's secretary threatened to resign. As only 132 members voted, with 80 in favour, there has since been some backtracking. It now appears members will only be able to vote on transfers made with extra cash from outside the season's budget. They may soon be poring over the website as Fleet have made GBP65,000 in TV payments and prize money from their Cup run so far. Winning the Replay would be worth another GBP90,000. Not that Sonsara intends to splash it all on a centre-forward. "It's important we are responsible about that and don't put it all into the playing budget," he said. It doesn't sound very romantic, but running football clubs is not very romantic. FC United of Manchester rather contradicted their founding principles to accept Friday night television coverage of their First-Round tie because they needed the cash. Football clubs always do. As I speak to Sonsara the ground is being readied for the TV cameras, mainly by volunteers. "There's Chris Pilkinton," says Sonsara, who himself works gratis. "Chris has been a fan of the club for years. He's been cutting ivy, now he's doing some electrical work, next he'll be ironing our new shirt-back sponsor's logo on. We couldn't survive without volunteers." Like Ebbsfleet, AFC Wimbledon rely on a lot of unpaid labour, but such is the passion this phoenix club invokes there are 250 regular volunteers ("I wish I had 50," said Sonsara enviously). Like Ebbsfleet the AFC chairman is a financially literate professional with time to spare. Erik Samuelson is a former partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, now retired, with his children grown up. He is paid a guinea a year, which he does not take. "People want to be involved with the club. It is very social," he said. Samuelson added: "Our structure means we cannot be bought, moved or sold by anyone without a significant majority of the membership agreeing. There are immense challenges around funding but unlike a lot of trust-run clubs we were able to start with a clean slate. We were not rescuing a club with massive debts." MyFC were - Ebbsfleet approached them - and have found it hard going. Tonight, however, both clubs can enjoy the sort of evening in the spotlight that sustains all those volunteers and long-distance internet fans through the hard grind of non-League budget balancing. And when it is over the fans can celebrate that it was their club which won or lost, not one owned by a porn baron, transatlantic property developer or shady financier. How the clubs compare Ebbsfleet United/AFC Wimbledon Gravesend & Northfleet Original name Wimbledon Old Central FC 1946 Founded 1889 2007 Reformed 2002 League position: Seventh in Conference South (sixth tier of English football)/first in Conference National (fifth tier of English football) Ground capacity: Stonebridge Road (5011, 500 seated) Kingsmeadow (4722, 1265 seated) Average attendance: 950/3400 Ground facilities: Club-house bar for home fans/Large rooms holding weddings/parties/comedy nights. Sponsor: Eurostar/Sports Interactive Number of members/Trustees: 3500 (paying GBP50-GBP100 per year)/1800 (GBP25 per year) Adult ticket prices: GBP11/GBP14 to stand, GBP16-18 to sit Record signing: Michael Gash, GBP20,000 (from Cambridge City, 2008)/Jon Main, undisclosed (Tonbridge Angels, 2007) Adult season ticket price: GBP189-GBP210/GBP240-GBP340 Best FA Cup finish: Fourth Round, 1963 (as Gravesend & Northfleet)/1988 Winners (as Wimbledon) First Round for past three seasons
I've had some requests for the number of folks who have RSVP'ed for the meeting on Dec. 4th (less than a week away). To date, I have 13 unique RSVP's from BS and CA Forums.
I like say a big thank you to Justin for what he put together for yesterday meeting. Also it was nice to see so many out there who care about soccer here in Austin. AS i sit here this morning and think back on what was said yesterday. I am starting to form opinion that a co- op team might not be the way to go. For simple fact that where would it go spsl which might be cheap to do then any other league but really it not a big enough market and would you really get 500 plus to go watch the game's. Yes having a co- op team sound great and idea of it here in Austin would fit the city with it moto keep Austin wierd. In reality it would be a hard sell given what ele's is here in Austin. I am in the belief that the best way forward is to unite all soccer groups in Austin under one banner with the goal to promote and support and publicize all that is soccer here in Austin. We know that soccer in Austin is a live and well and we need to show future investors that we are commited and united to soccer here in Austin.Would be saying to them that hey look at us we got all these groups and support for soccer here and hungry for a higher level of soccer. One thing that does concern me is the lack of stablity of low league soccer. There is to many groups want there piece of the pie. The USSF should run div 2 div 3 and div 4 after all are they not the govern body of soccer in the US.
I totally agree with TallPaul. Very few people are going to get behind an spsl team, I won't. The fact is, at least 80% of the hard-core soccer fans in this town are Mexican-Americans. If we continue to ignore that we will continue to fail to get established pro-soccer in Austin. The Aztex only paid lipservice to that fact and hence the lower turnouts. You need Mexicans on your team, a Spanish-speaking announcer, and lower ticket prices and you will fill the stands in a heartbeat. We don't need to start a team, we need to attract an investor to start a team. The best way to do that is to organize friendlies between well-known Mexican teams in Austin, like the Aztex did. Get Chivas to play Club America in Austin and you could fill a 60,000 seat stadium at $20 a ticket no problem. Do that enough times and someone with deep pockets will bring a team here.
Another thing, you have GOT to play some Tejano music. Also, some people have suggested trying to work with the Lonestar organization. That's a hard sell because most of those parents aren't soccer fans. They are interested in their kids and want to see them play.
Arrange games between the youth/U-21 teams of major Mexican clubs - Pachuca v Atlante for example - and put a Lonestar XI on the schedule as well. IIRC, a game with a Mexican team's U-23s drew 6k in Chatanooga in the Spring. BTW, the Lonestar XI wouldn't have to be on the bill, just playing practice games with the visiting teams. Would be a sell for the parents, no?
Now you're talking! Put a lonestar friendly at the beginning of a double-header with Cruz Azul vs Tigres in the Mexican league offseason. Or it could even be a friendly between an MLS club and a mexican club. I would go see that long before going to an spcl game.